The great animagus debate
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: is there anything that says it needs to be an entire mandrake leaf?
Icarus: well the instructions are "hold a mandrake leaf" so i'm guessing that you can't really put part of it
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: i'd say it's worth a try at least
Leska: I support the motion
Icarus: i wonder if you can like, idk hold tiny parts of it in your mouth, each for a month
or does it have to be like, in one piece?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: or just find the tiniest
or shrink the leaf
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: if you separate it like that, it'd probably dry up tho
Icarus: you're going to use it in a potion, don't potions ingredients react adversely to being cast at, at least in the potions
Icarus: it's in your mouth, how dry can it get
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: idk if that counts if you reverse the spell
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: i understood that to mean that you'd cut a piece off the leaf, keep that in your mouth for a month and then get another piece the next month etc
Icarus: like, idk, if you break it into pieces and stick it to your back teeth like some weird braces pieces you could probably get away with it
Icarus: oh the first suggestion, yeah it does seem ridiculous now that you point that out, although don't preservation charms on potions storage containers take care of that?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: storage containers maybe, but if temporary shrinking would be a problem for the potion, then so would preservation charms, i'd wager
Icarus: then how the heck do storage containers in trunks like harry's work?
if they keep potions ingredients fresh
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: the containers are charmed, the ingredients just exist in the charmed space
Icarus: the charms aren't applied directly to the ingredients so maybe that's the workaround
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: no magic touches them directly
Icarus: yeah well i was saying, just put the leaf in one of those
don't see it drying anytime soon if you do that
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: and it may even be a spell/ rune work specifically designed to cause no issue in potions, at least with the more basic ingredients
would be a bit gross to get the spit soaked leaf bits out of that jar tho lol
Icarus: an animagus is like, a preprogrammed, identifiable, wandless self transfiguration if one could manage wandless transfiguration, i argue that they could probably, with practice, achieve something similar to the animagus transformation, however not as easily identifiable as they could turn themselves to any animal they wish
that, ofc, depends on how invasive such a transfiguration is and whether a wix would retain their mind and magic in such a form
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: wasn't there something about losing higher reasoning abilities if you do that
Icarus: it would have always been gross
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: if it's an entire leaf, you could just spit it in the cauldron
or take it out with tweezers
Icarus: i only ever saw that in "the art of self fashioning" by lomon, nowhere else, so i'm disinclined to take it under consideration
especially bc we see draco turned into a ferret
and retain understanding of human knowledge
and language
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: there's also the matter of amount of spit to consider. if you chop the leaf up, you increase the surface area and therefore the amount of spit that can cling onto it. that could cause problems
Icarus: works just as well for the itty bitty bitsies
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: while he's a ferret? don't remember that
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: more work tho
Icarus: so is the purpose of leaf to absorb ur dna and ur magical signature?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: insufficiently researched. but the leaf is to be "soaked" in your mouth
which leaves the question how much spit is supposed to go in the potion
Icarus: yeah, it's not the strongest evidence but i don't think someone as brilliant as barty would have used that method if draco couldn't understand that he is being humiliated, plus i remember draco retaining an understanding of what had happened as a de-transfigured human, so
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: but understanding the situation and being able to perform complex magic are two different things
Icarus: this leaves the question of would it work if soaked in blood
ah wait blood doesn't hold dna
no nuclei in the red blood cells iirc
but white blood cells do tho!!
Icarus: which is why i'm not sure abt this, it's arguable but it lacks research
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: lol yes it does
Icarus: so just, induce an immune reaction, do some bloodletting, put the mandrake leaf in, and voila!
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: how do you think criminal investigators determine whose blood is chilling around in a puddle
Icarus: i mean, i used to know, been ages since i used my biology knowledge, like, six years or so
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: just get someone you won't miss to do it
Icarus: i totally forgive myself for this slip up
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: so do i
just funny
Icarus: i think the unspeakables would be down for the sacrifice
that, or put out an ad asking for volunteers
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: too many untrustworthy wankers in there
Icarus: i mean, it's not like you can try it on anything other than humans to begin with
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: just get the latest annoying defense professor to do it! nobody will be surprised if they vanish and they were likely a piece of trash anyways
Icarus: but they have their oaths, and if u play your cards right, you can tie them up in a ridiculous amount of extra oaths that it would be absolutely pointless for them to try to get into the program if they aren't 100% committed
in the end, you just want test subjects
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: if you have the time and patience for all the stealth that'd be required, sure. i'd rather get rid of some people, i think
the sample size would need to contain a variety of people anyways, including some who are less learned and disciplined than unspeakables
Icarus: plus, since the animagus transformation seems to be tied to the soul in some way, i feel like a willing participant would be Much better than a forced one
also, there needn't be a direct jump to human testing
Icarus: but if my work succeeds they'd have the academic position to steal it, i'm not so stupid as to leave myself in the open like that [using the defense professor]
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: that's what the moving staircases are for. truly a tragedy that nobody considers the risk of a 5+ storey fall
Icarus: one can test the mandrake leaf marinated in blood and compare it to the mandrake leaf held in the mouth
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: no need to force them, just nudge them a bit into the direction that aligns with your goals
Icarus: but i need them for further testing! what if it had adverse reactions! what if it makes one more animalistic?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: if the result isn't an explosion, it would absolutely have to be something that consumes blood
Icarus: seems unlikely, since we're basing this off the hypothesis that the leaf is there to soak up dna and magic if the blood soaked leaf fails, one could try other bodily fluids or other orfices
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: well obviously that [throwing the subjects down the staircase] only happens when you're done with them
if you are willing to bind unspeakables by oaths, you can do it with other people too
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: probably easier as well, it has to take a toll on your magic to have a large number of oaths you're bound to
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: this was more of a demand than a hypothesis
i want it to be a quick way to a vampire army
Icarus: but there i would have them already silenced by their original oaths so i needn't introduce the real ones until they're invested in the project, ya know?
Icarus: idk, one can totally pull a voldemort and have them bound in a slavery-like bond, less strain on the individual
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: well the original oaths worked great on augustus rookwood
Icarus: well, augustus rookwood never spoke of what happened, so he remained an unspeakable, but he could totally sneak out results
Icarus: here the result would be augustus himself harder to sneak out, i'm sure
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: but what effect would those slave bonds have on your personal magic?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: the information on dark magic of this sort is still in dispute, after all
Icarus: i feel like bonds aren't a taint on magic as much as they are a way to tie two magics of different peaple, so if you're bound to someone v dark you get a bit more dark and so on
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: well, after blood and saliva, the following fluids are are varying degrees of nasty and unsanitary
i'm more interested on any effect ones diet might have on the magic
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: is a vegan more likely to be a herbivore, and a cannibal more likely to be a carnivore, for example
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: seems like it would taint the result of the animal you'd get
Icarus: i was thinking more along the lines of maybe blood plasma, in an attempt to decrease the concentration of non-dna holding cells
I am trying to check the validity of our dna & magic hypothesis
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: this focus on purifying the liquid to get as much dna as possible could lead to disaster
supposedly, your animagus form is dependent on your personality
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: the idea that ones personality is entirely formed by our dna has been rejected
Icarus: interesting, but that would require a huge testing pool to see if there is any solid correlation [between diet and form]
and even then, you'd have to start some kind of blind testing. where the subjects do not know what they are eating and observing their animagus results
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: well yes, that's what i'm gunning for
Icarus: to see if the diet itself is the thing affecting the choice or if it is the mentality that comes with being vegan or not
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: that was the thought
it'd probably be more ethical to focus on vegans than on cannibals
Icarus: plus, it would cast some serious doubt about the random everyday wix who is an omnivore and yet turns into an animal that could be either
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: most omnivores still profess to love animals
Icarus: needn't be cannibals they just need to have a meat-heavy diet
Icarus: after all, most carniverous animals don't go full cannibal, they hunt
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: well if we're seeking to specify our results, this might be the most efficient option. there are less cannibalistic animals than there are carnivorous animals
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: that's the point. if you can prove a clear correlation between a cannibalistic diet and a cannibalistic animagus form, that's huge
Icarus: but that's an almost insurmountable hurdle
you're better off testing vegans and meat lovers and a bunch of normal people and extrapolate from that
Chaos Coordinator - she/her: Woah what have I walked into here lol are we talking general animagus bringing human traits…? And ended up with…cannibalism?????
Icarus: no we were talking about modifying the animagus transformation then we got to the question of whether human habits can affect which form you end up taking
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: that's the ravenclaw style of discourse
Icarus: ah true, it just kinda goes there
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: in hypothetical conversation, ethics are secondary, if relevant at all
Icarus: yeap! like when i used to volunteer as a lab instructor at uni. my fav thing to do with experiments that had the students handling radioactive samples is to put them on the spot and make them choose a sample for me to swallow
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: there's a couple dozen species or so that have been confirmed as being cannibals at some point or other. if we're looking for a correlation between animagus animal and diet, a diet that is super rare among animals is one that will yield clear results the quickest
Icarus: ofc i never did but it was good for testing they were thorough in reading the safety section of the experiment guide
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: well anything else would've been gryffindorish to a concerning degree
Icarus: if it could be proven imagine how terrifying someone with a black widow spider animagus would be
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: terrifying, but they'd be outed as dangerous quickly - and killed by a newspaper once transformed
Icarus: oh we had a few "dead' samples, so i would have been mostly fine, just mild nausea and a slight headache for a couple of days maybe a slight increase in my chances of contracting cancer but, the things we do for science yk?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: GRYFFINDOR
you dont do that without a control group
Icarus: i mean, there was this physicist who was trying to study the effects of radiation on humans and jusy shoved his hand in front of a beam, then documented the healing process
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: yea and that physicist was an absolute Gryffindor
[moving channel]
love that you give context for other interested scientists
Icarus: HE WAS but also a wonderful madlad and without his work it would have taken until shit blew up for others to know that being exposed to radiation is bad
Icarus: u gotta, references are everything
I Still think that someone should try to tweak the animagus transformation process
like, why a mandrake leaf
why in the mouth
why the stupid incantation
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: well it was pierre curie, marie was sick from radiation all the time too, it would've been noted
hypothesis: most of that stuff isnt necessary
Icarus: so much of it is like, arbitrary. which ofc is just lazy writing by the author but idc abt her
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: just an attempt to keep people from getting more capable and harder to detect for the government
Icarus: why a lightening storm
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: harmonising latent magical energy?
/an increase of that energy
Icarus: not really, by then radioactive elements were being distributed as "miracle cures" and despite so many people suffering from radiation poisoning and so much other stuff (look up radium girls if you want to read up more about it) not much was done regarding it
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: mayhaps it's not just the fluid that matters, but your daily actions and active magical and cognitive input
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: otherwise you could just spit in a jar and dump the leaf in it
Icarus: radiation was still the brand new shiny thing
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: more like glowy thing
Icarus: like, it logs what you eat. how you speak, the magic that passes your lips?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: that's the hypothesis
Icarus: the mandrake seems a bad choice for it then, no?
i'd choose a myrtle leaf, maybe, i remember them being tied to "living" and "rebirth" or smth like that
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: and yet the reason they stopped using uranium as a glaze for dinnerware was its use in the war
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: the inherent meaning could influence the process tho
and suddenly everyone's a phoenix
i'd think you need the most neutral leaf possible
unless you want to cheat
Icarus: seems a bit ridiculous to me, if it's the nitrogen concentration then maybe but weather was not given any importance in any prior magics we've observed [re: harmonising energy]
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: which, fair
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: well we have been rather limited by our lazy predecessors and a less than helpful schooling system
Icarus: exactly, not because it was harming others, else we'd have had a Lot more security around the open vats and tubs used in primitive nuclear reactors
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: also the fact that you have to be registered as an animagus. feels like a slippery slope to be drafted if need be
Icarus: yeah, it's not even an appealing process
although, if one were to go by Hadrian and Mechavelli's philosophy, a civil army is something wonderful to have as a state, and could be a very powerful line of defense against invasion and hostile takeovers
they needn't fight but they need to be capable of fighting
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: a civil army, sure. but this is dangerous information for the government to have
there's a difference in fighting in a militia vs a state-controlled army, after all
Icarus: true true
i still think that testing if a transfigured wix is capable of undoing the tranfiguration would be the best approach to the whole animagus thing
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: well that's easy to arrange
Icarus: it's just, so stealthy, you can change into any animal you practiced to change into, you can have many forms
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: wouldnt even need that many vows, and you'd likely have a larger base of willing participants as long as you vow to turn them back if necessary
Icarus: and if anyone sees you transform they'll think your an animagus. and try to catalogue your defining characteristics and what animal you turn into
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: if you find the time to study multiple forms
i still think a plant, or an animal that looks like one would be good
Icarus: even one is more helpful, because for eg: you decide to learn how to turn into a corvid 1) you chose that animal 2) you're going to be just a generic corvid without any remarkable features!
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: 2) could make it harder to focus on it
Icarus: no, you studied corvids for the transformation you can make yourself one that's a big bigger or a bit blacker or a slightly shorter beak
everytime
the mechanics of the transfiguration do not differ
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: that would take quite the dedication
Icarus: you're basicaly anonymous
Icarus: and mastering the animagus transformation doesn't?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: not the mechanics, but it will decrease your brains ability to go on autopilot because it's always slightly different
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: you are suggesting, essentially, the animagus transformation + the ability to slightly alter your form
across multiple animals
i'd say one goal is harder to achieve than the other
Icarus: i'd rather the freedom to pick the animal i turn into and retain my anon status and make it impossible to be presecuted for not "registering" over an animagus form
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: sure sure
still harder
that was the only point i was making there
Icarus: nah, still pretty autopilot, just choose one of like. three images in your head
even having only two is a Huge advantage over having only one because, as i said before, people know that animagi only have one form, so with enough care you've secured your anonimity
Icarus: yes but like. the pay off
Helios [xe/xem]: i feel like you would need to completely deconstruct
the animagus tranformation to figure out why you only have one form and why it doesn't change then reconstruct it to meet your goals
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: huge, no question. would be interesting to study if it's easier for someone who already completed the animagus transformation
Icarus: but if i can figure our wandless self transfiguration, the animagus transformation would be pointless
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: all available evidence seems to suggest that it is similar to the patronus, it captures your personality in a way
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: yes, but the animagus transformation is already sufficiently researched to complete in a fairly safe manner
the same cannot be said for your goals
Icarus: i feel like it would taint their mental approach to the problem they're used to "going with the call of their soul" having them tackle a problem that wants to achieve a similar result would be much harder on them
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: you could also always push that job onto someone who's already an animagus
Helios [xe/xem]: but it already is wandless self transfiguration so you already have the basics down
Icarus: it's harder to break a habit than build a new one from scratch
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: mcgonagall would do it cause she's nice, skeeter would do it cause you blackmail her
Helios [xe/xem]: just ask ravenclaws and slytherins, they'd want to figure it out for their own reasons
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: you could use careful obliviation and see what your magic remembers
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: and steal credit for icarus' hard work
Icarus: it's like when i tutor, if my student already took the topic and has practiced it and failed my work is a lot harder trying to deconstruct their understanding and rebuilding it in a better way
Icarus: i'm on to you pumuckl, you won't pull a lockhart on me
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: which is why i suggest doing it with people who're already animagi
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: i dont want your area of study, i'm still hung up on the diet approach
Icarus: nooooo, i want someone who doesn't have the animagus mental framework! i don't want someone who is used to doing something in one way and now has to try to figure out how to do it in another way it would still be influenced by the animagus "state of mind" and could possibly limit the success of it to people who already achieved the transformation you get what i'm saying?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: i'm just suggesting it as a way of broadening your pool of subjects
AND you'd make valuable connections with people with transfiguration expertise
Helios [xe/xem]: hmmmm, now i'm wondering if someone who gets really good at wandless self transfiguration can technically become a metamorphmagus
Icarus: !!!!!!!
Icarus: maybe in later testing, but to begin with it's best to start with a clean slate
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: how clean are we talking
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: because if you are worried about certain knowledge making the task harder or impossible, you will have to recruit childrne
or change the curriculum
Helios [xe/xem]: you could probably try both approaches to see what works best
Icarus: no animagus transfiguration attempts yet, maybe read about the process but not once tried it
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: but the understanding of the animagus transformation is rooted in general understandings of transfig principles
Icarus: no, i feel like an animagus would gain a gut understanding of how to achieve the transformation. which is why it needs such a long period of ritualistic preparation
Icarus: yeah but being an animagus is not something you can understand by reading about iy
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: Icarus' plans are pretty close to that. metamorphmagery should be easier tho
Helios [xe/xem]: i mean you need multiple trials already so you could just include both the clean slate approach and the deconstructed animagus approach
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: i'm wondering about limiting this approach to internal parts of your body
you could make your blood magical
or get a neverending supply of phoenix tears
Icarus: but i'm the one doing the research, which means that it would be impossible to do both unless i share the research status with them. gotta develop the method first before i test it
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: or cheat at competitions
free potions ingredients
Icarus: isn't it a rule that you can't transfigure anything into a magical being. and by that no animagus could be something magical?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: rules, shmules
Icarus: the result is already magical because the magic is what holds it in the altered state
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: i think all of what we're talking about is rule breaking
Helios [xe/xem]: you don't have to do them both at the same time, you could independently develop your method
Icarus: and have someone crosscheck my work by doing research in the opposite direction?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: just add some extra magic
Icarus: seems unlikely that you can embue it with further magical qualities
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: well the patronus is already magic
and we still got dumblebore with his phoenix
it's worth a try, at least
Icarus: but that's an apperation, hardly comperable to a transfiguration
one is solid. the magic changing its properties
the other is magiv given form
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: the point is, without dumbles people might think that you cant have a magical patronus
Icarus — 02/26/2022: plus the patronus wouldn’t cry phoenix tears
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: and i doubt the area is sufficiently reaserched
Icarus: yeah but like. Gamp's laws
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: yea but if you can transform into a phoenix
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: they've got like fifty exceptions, dont they
Icarus: i remember only five?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: hyperbole
Icarus: jdhdjdb, sorry
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: there's always room for a couple more
wizard war criminal (she/they): honestly with the way you guys are going it would probably be easier to just make a horcrux, discorporate yourself, and possess people
ultimate anonymity
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: Also ALSO the rule of you cant be a magical creature is for animagi, which is something you explicitly dont want to be
Icarus: idk, the whole cannibalism part of it doesn't appeal to me
wizard war criminal (she/they): fair
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: yea but then you just get killed by some stupid teen with no skills besides flying and disarming
Icarus: plus, soul magic is sorta sus, which is why i'm doubly squicked by the animagus transformation
Helios [xe/xem]: yeah but now it isn't about anonymity it's about knowledge
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: icarus wants anonymity
Icarus: yeah but like. you can turn a goblet into a hummingbird but not a snidget
wizard war criminal (she/they): no, no, you keep your horcrux somewhere sensible. like a bag in a bank vault full of random shit. or you stick it on the moon.
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: also where do you even find someone who's capable enough? quirrell was absolute trash, for example
Icarus: it's about both, i want to be a cool ass corvid and i don't want to be bothered by laws
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: can you apparate there tho
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: you can still try to find out if theres a secret way to do it
Helios [xe/xem]: just make the horcrux a pebble and lose it
wizard war criminal (she/they): you don't need capable hosts. just leave when you're done. find a coma patient! boom, no worries about two minds in one body
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: maybe it's been possible all along but deemed to dangerous/powerful and fidelius'ed away by the ministry
wizard war criminal (she/they): also we know there are rituals to make yourself a new body.
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: do i want to chill in bed the entire time tho? cause i can do that in my body just fine
and i dont want people to turn my body around hourly
Icarus: idk, like, an extra me? i'd hate it, we'd fight over the dumbest shit
agree over everything but also argue over everything
Icarus: plus. i want to be able to turn into an animal
wizard war criminal (she/they): if you're possessing someone you can control their body, and you can possess animals.
Icarus: but they diee and they aren't meeeeee
i don't want to be the reason the corvid population tanks
Helios [xe/xem]: random question: can a metamorphagus become an animagus and if so can they change animals/features
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: it is not considered possible, but we aren't bound by those claims
wizard war criminal (she/they): reject canon make headcanon
wizard war criminal (she/they): i'd assume that if you possessed a coma patient you could control the body and there wouldn't be another mind fighting you
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: and then i have to navigate the family who thinks grandma is finally back? no thank you
Icarus: holy fuck that would be super cool
Icarus: but i don't want another human body :/ ik i'm being picky but like, come On a corvid can Fly and collect shiny stuff
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: so can a seeker
Icarus: but winnnggsssss being tinyyyyy, having a beak, not needing to be human having cool ass feathers and fucking around w other animals and humans come onnnnn
Icarus: i think they [metamorphmagi] would be limited in their shifting abilities?
like the kind of animal doesn't change but they sure as hell can change features
Icarus: except for the identifying feature abt them, i hc that's some sort of anchor in the transformation
wizard war criminal (she/they): wonder if you could like change what breed of dog you were
how much change is too much change
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: no such thing
no limit accepted. just keep going
Helios [xe/xem]: i mean, we see tonks change her nose into a pig snout so who knows
wizard war criminal (she/they): yeah that's a wholeass other species wtf
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: just part of her body tho, not her entire body
Icarus: wait doesn't that mean that they're natural born animagi
they can just change every single thing about them and become an animal
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: all this and you keep missing the potential for gathering information
so i guess we know the solution, then. invent a metamorphmagus potion
wizard war criminal (she/they): the real question is how "real" is an animagus' animal? like do you have the animal's dna? can you have kids as an animal? if you were venomous would you produce venom?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: or alter your genes to become one
Icarus: i was going to bring it up as my next argument should you have persisted but i'm glad we see eye to eye abt this
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: well if you dont [have the animals DNA] that'd be trash
like i said, free potions ingredients, potential for cheating at stuff, endless fun
wizard war criminal (she/they): if you cloned an animal using an animagus' animal dna, could the clone turn into a human?
Icarus: hunt the blacks for sport science
use their blood in potions
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: the clone would probably be stuck since the dna doesnt contain the necessary information to turn back
wizard war criminal (she/they): oh this would be a great way to get multiple animagus forms with my possession method. just steal some blood from animagi >:D
Icarus: would it hold the magic tho?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: you might be able to force them to revert to a human stage
but it'd be cruel to have an adult with no taught skills
they'd not be able to learn them at that age
Icarus: oh yeah true true
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: unless the idea is to have a baby as the clone
Icarus: but how could a baby achieve the animagus transformation
wizard war criminal (she/they): you can't really clone an adult, it'll always start as a baby
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: in which case you'd have to have someone reverse the transformation, raise the child until adulthood and have them turn back then
Icarus: or suffer a toddler that can switch between being a puppy or a human all the time
wizard war criminal (she/they): if you cloned a metamorphagus, would the clone be one?
Icarus: but they would have a reduced lifespan
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: but if you have an adult that you clone, it will already have genetic damage and have a shorter life span and a higher likelihood for cancer
wizard war criminal (she/they): magic
Icarus: yeapp. signs of early aging and the like, like that goat or sheep they tried it on
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: more likely to work without too much trouble
wizard war criminal (she/they): wizards live for over a century
Icarus: but they still age at normal rates
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: i dont think we have knowledge how animagery affects the life span
Icarus: *normal-ish
wizard war criminal (she/they): wow talk about a bad deal. 150 years of life and half of it spent in an old decrepit deteriorating body?
Icarus: ikr? that's why it's weird when a fanfic claims that "Tom hardly ever ages bc he's so powerful" like, what about dumbledore????
how the Hell did he get THAT wrinkly?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: he uses all his power showing everyone how great he is
i'm sure being holier than thou all the time eats a LOT of energy
wizard war criminal (she/they): anyway, back to ignoring all the ethical issues of the things i'm suggesting, do we think that you can do magic in your animal form? like could you, as a bird, fly around casting spells? because that seems stupidly overpowered
Helios [xe/xem]: by the time canon starts Dumbledore is 120 while chronologically Voldemort is 65
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: if you learned wandless wordless magic, i dont think why you shouldnt
Icarus: we never see it in canon, and i think it would just, destroy the lore if it was possible
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW: nothing too complicated if you're an animagus because their thoughts are not quite human
Icarus: maybe in this case
Icarus: oh true. yeah the thought processes are different
wizard war criminal (she/they): oh yeah they feel emotions differently don't they
i imagine that would knock out a lot of the war crimes you could commit
Icarus: ok so when they say tom barely looks 30 then i expect dumbledore to look barely 60 not a super wrinkly twinkly-eyed maniac
my dad's 60, my uncle is in his 60 they're not "old sacks of bones"
Helios [xe/xem]: yeah but the average lifespan of wizards is 140ish so he's still pretty old
Icarus: i mean. could you truely judge an animals actions as to whether they are a war crime or not?
From this point on, the conversation switched to being about time travel which I will add in a separate chapter
28th of March 2022
allhailthewatcherCould it also be about speaking? Tying it to your personality as well as your magic?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoWoooh maybe
allhailthewatcherI need to get on here more often the debates/theories over intricacies are totally my thing
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoWwhere were you a couple weeks ago
you would've been an excellent addition to the conversation
allhailthewatcherWe do know Animagi are tied to their personalities: Peter’s clever and actually rather poweful, or at least knows how to put his limited magic to the best use, to have pulled of the stunt he did in Diagon, but he’s a rat instead of something larger because he’s always hid behind others. And because he’s. A rat.
James probably wouldn’t have gotten a buck with a full rack on magic alone—that takes pride
Hey I’ve always wondered this: what would happen if a toddler went through the process somehow to become an animagus? Or someone in a coma all their life, with a completely undeveloped personality?
Is it prophetic in some way? Has Peter always been a rat (in the traitorous snitch sense) or was that just a potential he lived out?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoWi think the whole idea of peter being bad at magic is kinda weird. the animagus transformation is supposed to be hard. fair enough, they helped him, but surely he would have to have some skills himself. also real pathetic if they kept him around as an incompetent hype man
also if rats aren't slytherins, i'll eat my skeleton
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoWi think it may be somewhat like the sorting hat and based on your values?
allhailthewatcherCould be
Does some part of it already have inherent magic then?
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoWa patronus can change, maybe the same goes for an animagus form
allhailthewatcher Because the sorting hat was painstakingly enchanted.
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW it would have to, if it's supposed to represent your personality
allhailthewatcherThat’s true. It just seems like more specific magic than a plant would have
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoWi expect it'd draw on the magic of the animagus-to-be
the potion making process already uses the brewers magic, so it wouldn't be weird if that continues throughout the ritual
allhailthewatcher Probably. I supposed that’s one of the spells cast then. It’s a weird format tho. Where does the result of that magic go in the process? Does it just chill there until the waiting period is complete or does it materialize in the mandrake leaf or elsewhere?
With the exception of mind magic like the curse on Umbridge, almost every spell we see has an immediate result of some kind
Almost nothing just. Lingers there for a while with a handy lil message
I wish we had more information on the RULES
Except for wards, I guess. But even those depend on runes
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW my head canon is that it sort of alters your personality slightly while you are in the process
Also, apparently in Quidditch Through The Ages, it says that flying animagi don't retain their mind enough to allow wix to fly to a pre-determined destination? Which makes no sense, but what else is new with Joanne